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Jim Popp watched as the Montreal Alouettes worked their way up the field, trailing the B.C. Lions 23-18 at the start of the fourth quarter of their Aug. 4 game.

The potential for a game-changing play hung heavy in the hot Montreal air.

Then it happened. Als quarterback Kevin Glenn’s 11-yard pass connected at Montreal’s 47-yard line, then was fumbled. It ended up in the hands of B.C.’s Loucheiz Purifoy, who trucked it all the way back for a touchdown.

Popp threw a challenge flag on the field, desperately arguing that the pass should be ruled incomplete.

The flag hitting the turf resonated more than 500 kilometresaway in downtown Toronto, where four men were packed into a dark and narrow room at CFL headquarters. As the night moved along, a multitude of TVs, laptops, iPads and computer monitors lit up the room.

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When a coach throws his challenge flag — hoping for a missed penalty, or when a team scores, or in some cases when the refs on the field might have blown a call — the game stops and the CFL’s command centre gets to work.

“We’ve got a challenge!” one of the four men yells out. It had been a quiet night to this point. Popp and his counterpart on the Lions sideline, Wally Buono, hadn’t thrown any flags, the game was flowing along and the officials on the field had a good grasp of what was happening around them.

It takes Jeff Harbin, the replay official in the command centre, 54 seconds to determine that the pass was in fact completed, and that the subsequent fumble and TD should stand. The Lions went on to win, 36-18.

Harbin’s role is a new one and was dubbed in the off-season by the CFL as “the eye in the sky.” It’s a role that the league has introduced to attempt to fix errors made in the heat of the moment on the field. A CFL ref for 13 seasons, Harbin says working in the command centre is like being a firefighter without the danger.

“There are a lot of times you’re watching something and nothing’s going on. All of a sudden a challenge flag comes out or there’s an interesting catch, a fumble or a touchdown that you have to look at from a few angles,” he said.

Boom — you spring into action.

He recalled a fumble near the sideline in the second half of that night’s doubleheader, between Saskatchewan and Calgary, where he had to determine who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds. Harbin made the call, but had input from his peers — a replay official, replay technician and injury spotter — and got the call right. Calgary took possession.

There’s a rhythm to the command centre that starts from the opening kickoff and makes it sound like a busy kitchen in a restaurant: The video official announces any new play; if there’s a scoring play, Harbin quickly reviews it and then says whether it’s green-lighted. The video editor calls out every time he’s packaged the previous play (“replay up!”) — and it all starts again with the next one.

The injury spotter sits in the back of the room and may mention a situation, or catch a uniform violation, but for the most part is busy sharing video of any play where someone is hurt with that team’s trainers — they can instantly view it on iPads at field level.

There’s a cohesiveness to the group that seems inevitable when you have people logging that many hours together in that small space.

“We all have different responsibilities, but we do help each other a lot because you can’t see everything in whatever your job is,” Harbin said.

That idea — that one person can’t see everything, or can’t do their job perfectly without help — is essentially the role the command centre has for its officials on the field. Like their uniforms, the refs’ roles are supposed to be black and white, but the grey — the human element — invariably finds its way in.

Asked if there are moments that he’s happy with or would like a redo on this season, Harbin laughed.

“The way my brain works, I remember the redo (moments) better,” he said. “There was a game earlier in the season where I called P.I. (pass interference) when I shouldn’t have. Now, I’d set a standard for the game that was just too tight. There were three of them in that game that may not have been called in other games, otherwise.”

On the other hand, Harbin thinks back to last year’s Grey Cup game and a call that he can hang his hat on.

“We got that P.I. on Ottawa near the end of the game, and that was an obvious one that was missed on the field,” he remembered. “We knew it in here. We weren’t sure (then-Edmonton coach Chris Jones) was going to challenge, but he did. We called the penalty quickly, and I think it made a big difference in that game — I know it did.”

Fans have expressed frustration with how long challenges can take and on Friday, the league responded. Coaches making their first challenge of the game will lose a timeout if it’s unsuccessful. It was previously a free challenge.

Coaches had made 90 challenges up to the start of Week 9, compared to 102 in all of the 2015 season. The league is learning on the fly with video review, but short of having a robot in the command centre, the human element will continue to slip in despite the full-field cameras and multiple replay angles.

Final calls can be more accurate, but they’ll never be perfect.

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